“There are many conferences taking place in the country; this is unique in that it is made up of activists, people who are working on the ground on various issues and not just people who have made a name from their writing or their speaking career” — so says Phil Wilayto, a founding member of the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) and coordinator of this weekend’s National Antiwar and Social Justice Conference, being held at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.
Bringing together many social justice and advocacy groups across the globe, the conference is the latest effort by UNAC to advocate for global peace, and the first to be held in the South. Founded in 2010 as a pro-Palestine alternative to the Michigan Emergency Committee to Oppose Wars in the Middle East, UNAC has held conferences over the past five years all across the northern United States, focusing their efforts on educating domestic activists on global issues and wars overseas in which the U.S. is involved. More recently, their focus has shifted specifically to educating young activists who are well aware of domestic issues but less so on war in the Middle East.
Phil Wilayto (Photo courtesy UNAC)
“We used to have a very strong anti-war movement in this country, but it has dissipated to a great extent during the Obama years,” says Wilayto. “Young activists have grown up without this understanding of what the U.S. government is doing in their name overseas.”
Wilayto stresses that this conference differs from a lot of other social justice conferences, which, he believes, focus on recruiting activists into the Democratic Party. UNAC strives to create an alternative to the pro-war politics present in both the Democratic and Republican parties, he says.
“While the Democratic Party is better on social issues, certainly, than the Republicans, on the issue of war it is indistinguishable. We are not pro-Democrat; we are trying to offer an alternative to both the neoliberalism of the Democrats and the nationalist populism of the Republicans,” says Wilayto. “We want to project a program that is pro-worker and anti-racist and anti-war. That is not a viable alternative; you couldn't vote for a candidate that had any chance of winning who projected that type of program.”
Ana Edwards (Photo courtesy UNAC)
While being the first UNAC conference in the South, this conference also holds the distinction of having the largest percentage of participants and organizations of African descent to date. One such organization is the Richmond-based Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality, represented in part by speaker and conference organizer Ana Edwards.
A lifelong resident of Richmond, Edwards will be helping to lead a march to the African burial ground in Shockoe Bottom on Sunday afternoon. Edwards has been working for 15 years to raise the profile of black history in Richmond. She is an advocate for the proposed 9-acre Shockoe Bottom Memorial Park that will encompass the execution site of Gabriel Prosser, an enslaved man who led a revolt, as well as the Lumpkin’s Jail site and the Devil’s Half-acre, where enslaved African men and women were jailed and sold.
“This site is extraordinary, and unique, and significant — not just to Richmonders, but to people across the country who understand that it is the history of black and white people in terms of slavery and the idea of freedom that is at the heart of the contradiction of our founding ideas, and what we continue to aspire to live by,” says Edwards.
The site was the focal point of the Shockoe Bottom stadium controversy, where then Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones had proposed the construction of a baseball stadium. After public outcry the plans were scrapped in late 2014; however, residential development in the area has continued at a pace that alarms Edwards and her organization, who are working to get legal protections placed on the area.
“We think it's critically urgent to legally protect the footprint of the memorial park in order that we even have those parcels available for incorporation into a historic district going forward,” says Edwards.
Edwards and Wilayto see this conference as the opportunity to connect the domestic with the international. Speakers and groups from as far away as Colombia, Cuba and Palestine will be holding panels educating attendees on wars in their nations, as well as the intersections of racial and other identities.
Cassia Laham (Photo courtesy UNAC)
Representatives from People's Opposition to War, Imperialism, and Racism (POWIR), a group protesting wars the U.S. is involved in overseas, will be moderating several panels. POWIR member and conference organizer Cassia Laham has traveled from south Florida with other group members to attend.
“We're going to be meeting people from the Philippines, we're going to be meeting people from Colombia,” says Laham. “It's really a very cool international conference where folks who agree on this one principle of doing away with U.S. and Western imperialism can come together, discuss and figure out what we can do collectively to make an impact on the world.”
The National Antiwar and Social Justice Conference runs from Friday, June 16, to Sunday June 18, at the Greater Richmond Convention Center. The admission fee is $35 for adults and $15 for children and low-income workers, though those able are encouraged to donate more. Information on the conference, including a list of panelists can be found here.
